1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cellular communications system, and more particularly to a transmission power control technique in a base station.
2. Description of Related Art
In code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, soft handover is a well-known technique where a mobile station is simultaneously communicating with multiple base stations, allowing hitless connection switching by making a connection to a new base station while maintaining a connection to an old base station. Soft handover provides diversity, which is a method of using independent fading signals received on several transmission paths all carrying the same message to improve the reliability of the transmission.
In the case of downlink (from base station to mobile station) soft handover, however, multiple base stations simultaneously transmit radio signals to the mobile station, resulting in substantial interferences at adjacent cells. As a technique of suppressing an increase in interference in the case of downlink soft handover, a downlink transmission power control method has been proposed by Furukawa (Technical Report of Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, RCS97-218, February 1998, pp. 40, Second chapter). An outline of the downlink transmission power control method will be described with reference to FIGS. 1-4.
It is assumed that a mobile station is communicating with multiple base stations for soft handover.
Referring to FIG. 1, a downlink signal from each of the base stations is received at an antenna and is transferred to a down converter 102 through a duplexer 101. The down converter 102 converts the received radio-frequency (rf) signal into a baseband signal and outputs it to a pilot signal receiver 103. The pilot signal receiver 103 detects a pilot signal from the received baseband signal and measures the intensity or quality thereof. A primary base station decision section 104 compares the intensity/quality measurements of the received signals to determine a base station transmitting a signal having the maximum intensity/quality as a primary base station to communicate with. A base station selection signal generator 105 generates a base station selection signal from the identification number of the primary base station. A control signal generator 106 generates control signals including a transmission power control signal and outputs the control signals to a combiner 107 together with the base station selection signal received from the base station selection signal generator 105. The combiner 107 combines the control signals and the base station selection signal with an uplink information signal to produce a transmission signal. The transmission signal is converted to an rf transmission signal by an up converter 108. The rf transmission signal is further amplified by an rf amplifier 109 and then transmitted as an uplink signal to the base stations through the duplexer 101. Each of the base stations communicating with the mobile station receives the uplink signal including the base station selection signal from the mobile station.
Referring to FIG. 2, at each of the base stations connected to the mobile station, the uplink signal is received at an antenna and is transferred to a down converter 202 through a duplexer 201. The down converter 202 converts the received rf uplink signal to a baseband signal and outputs it to both a transmission power control signal demodulator 203 and a base station selection signal demodulator 204. The transmission power control signal demodulator 203 demodulates the transmission power control signal from the received baseband signal and outputs it to a transmission power controller 205. The base station selection signal demodulator 204 demodulates the base station selection signal from the received baseband signal and outputs it to a primary/non-primary base station mode controller 206.
The transmission power controller 205 produces an interim controlled transmission power value P1 depending on the transmission power control signal inputted from the transmission power control signal demodulator 203 and outputs the interim controlled transmission power value P1 to the primary/non-primary base station mode controller 206.
The primary/non-primary base station mode controller 206 updates the interim controlled transmission power value P1 depending on the base station selection signal to produce a final controlled transmission power value P2 and output it to a transmission controller 207. The details of the primary/non-primary base station mode controller 206 will be described later.
The transmission controller 207 receives a downlink transmission signal and performs the output power control such that the transmission power of the downlink transmission signal is set to the final controlled transmission power value P2. The power-controlled downlink transmission signal is converted into radio frequency by an up converter 208. The rf downlink transmission signal is amplified by the rf amplifier 209 and then transmitted to the mobile station through the duplexer 201.
Referring to FIG. 3A, a transmission signal between the mobile station and multiple base stations has a frame structure. A frame D-001 consists of Fn slots to which consecutive numbers from 0 to Fn−1 are assigned, respectively.
As described above, the mobile station transmits the base station selection signal for soft handover to the base stations which it is communicating with. The base station selection signal is composed of a string of bits identifying each of the base stations. Since a plurality of bits are used to form a base station selection signal, redundancy can be provided, resulting in reduced transmission error due to noises and/or fading. Hereinafter, a string of 8 bits identifying each of the base stations is called “a base station selection code word.” An example will be described with reference to FIG. 3B.
As shown in FIG. 3B, assuming that a base station selection code word E-002 is “00001111”, each part of the code word E-002 is assigned to the dedicated field E-001 of a different uplink slot E-003. In other words, the base station selection code word E-002 is divided into 8 parts (here, each part is one bit) and the respective 8 parts are transmitted by the dedicated fields E-001 of different slots E-003. Here, a period of base station selection control E-004 is 8 slots, each of which has the desiccated field E-001 for storing a corresponding bit of the 8-bit base station selection code word E-002. It is possible to accommodate two or more bits of the base station selection code word E-002. The larger the number of bits to be accommodated, the shorter the period of base station selection control E-004.
In the cellular system, each base station and each mobile station measure intensities of pilot signals and interference signals received from adjacent cells at regular intervals in order to use them for handover control and call admission control. In the case where a base station performs the measuring of pilot signals and interference signals, the uplink transmission of each mobile station connected to the base station is temporarily halted to allow the precise measuring of signals from outside cells. Further, there are some cases where the uplink transmission of a mobile station is halted during communication so as to suppress uplink interference in the case of packet transmission and no-voice transmission.
Conventional BS Mode Update
As described before, the primary/non-primary base station mode controller 206 in each of the base stations updates the interim controlled transmission power value P1 depending on the base station selection code word E-002 to produce a final controlled transmission power value P2. The conventional base station mode control is performed as shown in FIG. 4.
Referring to FIG. 4, the primary/non-primary base station mode controller 206 inputs the base station selection code word E-002 from the base station selection signal demodulator 204 (step S401) and detects the base station identification number BS_IDRSV from the base station selection code word E-002 (step S402). Then, it is determined whether the base station identification number BS_IDRSV is identical to the identification number ID of its own (step S403). If the base station identification number BS_IDRSV is identical to the own identification number ID (YES at step S403), then the final controlled transmission power value P2 is set to the interim controlled transmission power value P1 inputted from the transmission power controller 205, that is, P2=P1 (primary base station mode), (step S404). If the base station identification number BS_IDRSV is not identical to the own identification number ID (NO at step S403), then the final controlled transmission power value P2 is set to a predetermined minimum transmission power value PMIN, that is, P2=PMIN (non-primary base station mode), (step S405). The predetermined minimum transmission power value PMIN may be 0. The final controlled transmission power value P2 is output to the transmission controller 207 (step S406).
In this manner, at each of the base stations communicating with the mobile station, the transmission power selectively switches on and off depending on the base station selection code word E-002 received from the mobile station. Accordingly, multiple base stations are prevented from simultaneously transmitting the same signal to a single mobile station and thereby interference to adjacent cells is suppressed, resulting in improved communication capacity.
1) Loss of BS Selection Signal
In the case where the uplink transmission of each mobile station connected to the base station is temporarily halted as described before, however, the base station selection code word E-002 to be transmitted to the base stations is punctured in part or in entirety as shown in FIG. 3C.
More specifically, when the uplink transmission of the mobile station is halted for an uplink transmission puncturing period F-001 in the base station control period E-004, the base station selection code word E-002 is punctured in part and an incomplete code word F-002 is received at the base stations. Such a partial or entire loss of the base station selection code word E-002 results in substantially reduced reliability on base station selection control.
2) Variation in BS Update Timing
As described before, during the soft handover operation, a plurality of base stations transmit the same signal to a single mobile station. In this case, the transmission timing of the signal is adjusted so that the signals transmitted by the base stations arrive at the mobile station within an acceptable time deviation. Since propagation distances from the mobile station to the base stations vary from base station to base station, the respective transmission timings of the base stations are different. On the other hand, the base stations also receive the uplink signal from the mobile station at different timings due to the different propagation distances.
In the case where the respective transmission timings of the downlink signals and the receiving timings of the uplink signal including the base station selection signal at the base stations are different as described above, there are cases where actual BS mode update timings of the base stations vary from base station to base station. The details will be described hereinafter.
Referring to FIG. 5, a time slot is denoted by reference symbol G-001 and each transmission signal has a frame structure where 15 slots are numbered from 0 to 14. For simplicity, it is assumed that two base stations 1 and 2 transmit downlink transmission signals G-002 and G-003 to the mobile station with the respective transmission timings (propagation delays: D1 and D2) adjusted so that the downlink transmission signals arrive at the mobile station within an acceptable time deviation.
Accordingly, the mobile station receives the downlink transmission signals G-002 as a downlink reception signal G-004 from the base station 1 and, at the approximately same time, receives the downlink transmission signals G-003 as a downlink reception signal G-005 from the base station 2.
The mobile station transmits an uplink transmission signal G-006 to the base stations 1 and 2 a time period of transmission timing offset TTR after the downlink reception signals G-004 and G-005 have been received. As described before, the uplink transmission signal G-006 includes the base station selection code word such that respective parts of the base station selection code word are conveyed in the dedicated fields as shown in FIG. 3B.
The base station 2 receives the uplink transmission signal G-006 as an uplink reception signal G-007 with a propagation delay time of D3 and the base station 1 receives the uplink transmission signal G-006 as an uplink reception signal G-008 with a propagation delay time of D4.
It is assumed that an entire base station selection code word is received when the slot numbered 14 has been received. In this case, the base station 2 starts the primary/non-primary BS mode update operation as shown in FIG. 4 when receiving the last part of the base station selection code word stored in the dedicated field G-020 in the slot numbered 14 of the uplink reception signal G-007. As shown in FIG. 5, the timing of receiving the last part of the base station selection code word falls into the subsequent slot numbered 0. Therefore, the actual primary/non-primary mode update is performed at the further subsequent slot G-017 numbered 1.
Similarly, the base station 1 starts the primary/non-primary BS mode update operation as shown in FIG. 4 when receiving the last part of the base station selection code word stored in the dedicated field G-021 in the slot numbered 14 of the uplink reception signal G-008. As shown in FIG. 5, the timing of receiving the last part of the base station selection code word falls into the next slot but one, that is numbered 1. Therefore, the actual primary/non-primary mode update is performed at the further next slot numbered 2.
In this manner, from the standpoint of the mobile station, the primary base station update timing of the base station 1 is the slot G-018 numbered 2 and that of the base station 2 is the slot G-019 numbered 1. Since the BS selection code word is transmitted during a period of base station selection control, variations in BS mode update timing may cause loss of a downlink signal. To avoid such a signal loss, the mobile station needs an added circuit for monitoring the BS mode update timing at all times.